Tonight I attended a presentation by Ned Stearns AA7A on the Dxpedition version of FT8, and his extensive architectural design contributions to the Baker Island operation as well as his input to Joe Taylor's work on the protocol. While most of us don't need anything like the Baker station setup, the technical issues may nevertheless influence the direction and needs of the overall amateur gear market. With Elecraft's emphasis on supporting Dxpeditions I am sure that they look at such issues when considering new features for the K4 etc. Just a few points from the presentation that stuck in my mind: * The radio transmit frequency must be controlled by both the logger and the JT software, which work together but are separate. I have no personal experience with FT8, but I understand that (either with the current version or very soon) the DX hunter's transmit frequency will be dictated automatically on the fly by the DX starion, within a segment of the overall FT8 frequency window, such that the DX can overlap several FT8 qso's in time. This necessitates working around the basic "single sender" RS-232 signalling scheme. Ways to do this were recently discussed here, and need not be repeated. My point: Elecraft might consider an attempt to standardize a new communication scheme for station control, such as to simplify the whole setup. Wiring a station is already disturbimgly complicated where multiple radios are involved. * The DX station would thus go beyond "SO2R" to something more like "SO4R". The FLEX approach already seems to have an edge in savings on mulit-radio hardware; a market-leading Elecraft architecture might optimize overall hardware cost when one operator is to use 2,3 or 4 virtual radios. Just hope it can be done so modularly that a small configuration is still affordable. * With the current interest in FT8, there seems to be pressure for the hardware to have capability to process a frequency segment that is larger than an SSB bandwidth. 73, Erik K7TV
-----Original Message----- From: elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net <elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Bill Frantz Sent: Monday, April 15, 2019 5:28 PM To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Visalia? I didn't spend any time at the Flex booth, although their signas touted SmartSDR Version 3, so I expect they were also talking about multiFlex. While there may not be a lot of use for multiFlex in the normal DX chaser, perhaps except for those stations that really don't want US responses so transmit in the US phone band but listen in the US CW band, there are some interesting uses for DXpeditions. AA7JV was interested in running both CW and FT8 on 160M with one amplifier and transmit antenna. (He said setting up two stations was too much work, and you needed to be running both modes on those "magic nights" when 160 was open.) He described an approach using a Flex in his talk at the Topband dinner and in his ""The RIB: Radio In a Box for DXpeditions" session. The idea of RIB is to put the box in the rare DX with a generator and antenna, and operate it from the boat off shore via UHF based internet, just visiting the DX to set up, service the generator, and tear down. 73 Bill AE6JV ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
